Realme debuted a new device last week in India, dubbed Realme 13 5G, selling at a price point where it faces stiff competition from the CMF Phone 1. Here’s a comparison between the two on the basis of on-paper specs, allowing you to decide aa to which one’s the better choice and also worthwhile your money.
Display
The Realme 13 5G sports a 6.72-inch LCD Display with an FHD+ Resolution and offers 83% NTSC coverage, 120Hz refresh rate, 580 nits typical brightness, and up to 240Hz touch sampling rate.
The CMF Phone 1 sports a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED LTPS display with a Refresh Rate of 120Hz. It has a peak brightness of 2000 nits, 395 ppi, 240Hz touch sampling rate, and a 960Hz PWM Dimming rate.
As you could notice, the CMF Phone 1 clearly dominates the Realme 13 5G when it comes to display, because it sports a better AMOLED panel that’ll not only have higher colour reproduction, but is also brighter. The viewing angles would also be superior on the CMF Phone 1.
Performance & Software
The Realme 13 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 Processor under the hood, paired with 8GB RAM and up to 256GB of storage which is also expandable. The CMF Phone 1 packs a more powerful MediaTek Dimensity 7300 processor, paired with up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and up to 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage.
While both of them have the same price tag for the 8GB + 128GB model, the Realme device has a single advantage here, where it offers a higher storage variant, but that comes associated with a higher price as well. In terms of processor, the CMF Phone 1 gets the better chip with more power, so you could even do light gaming.
Software-wise, both of them run on Android 14 but Nothing OS is the more cleaner Android skin with lesser bloatware and a decent amount of features, while Realme’s OS offers a bit more customisation. It’s up to you which OS you prefer, but if you want better performance, CMF Phone 1 is the way to go.
Read More: CMF Phone 1 Review: Software Excellence Trumps Replaceable Back Panels
Battery, Cameras, and Other Details
Both the devices pack a 5000mAh battery but the Realme 13 5G gets slightly faster 45W charging while CMF Phone 1 maxes out at 33W. In real world, this should ideally account for a difference of a few minutes.
When it comes to cameras, there’s a dual rear camera setup at the back of Realme 13 5G, including a 50MP f/1.8 Samsung ISOCELL S5KJNS primary sensor with OIS, along with a 2MP f/2.4 portrait sensor. It has a 16MP selfie sensor.
The CMF Phone 1 features a dual camera setup at the back, also coming with a 50MP f/1.8 primary camera and a 2MP depth sensor, along with a 16MP selfie shooter on the front.
Specs-wise, while both of them are similar, the Realme 13 5G has support for OIS that should help it in more stabilised video shooting and low-light photography. Otherwise, we can’t comment on which one has a superior setup as we haven’t used the Realme 13 5G.
The Realme 13 5G also has a better IP64 rating compared to IP52 rating of CMF Phone 1, and gets you stereo speakers while the CMF Phone has a single speaker. However, with CMF’s device, you get better design customisability if you are into that.
Verdict
The Realme 13 5G and the CMF Phone 1, both are priced at Rs 17,999 and we think the latter is a superior choice due to the value it provides for the price. If you can handle lack of OIS support, and compromise on the IP rating and stereo speakers, then you get a cleaner software with significantly better performance and display panel on the CMF Phone 1.
